Her mother must have told her that. Her mother. Long nosehairs, Johnny, are so unbecoming in a gentleman. Or her father, singing nonsense songs while she hid herself in the garden. 'Fuck art,' she hisses quietly to herself.
She knows where to go, too. Not far. The intersection of one road with a much larger one. There are many like it in London. Traffic lights, and a few women wandering back and forth, sometimes crossing at the lights so- that the drivers can see them, can see their legs and their white bodies. If a car window is rolled down, a woman may lean down close to the driver so that they can discuss terms. Professional, but not very discreet. She knows that sometimes the police will make a rudimentary attempt to close down business, knows too that policemen are among the whores' best customers. That's why it's dangerous for her to come here. Dangerous but necessary: she has an itch, and women like these go missing all the time, don't they? No one gets suspicious. No one starts alarm bells ringing. Alarm bells are the last thing you need in this part of the city. Like with her first victim, by the time they got to her she was a meal for rats. Animal feed. She chuckles again, and makes to walk- past one of these women, but stops.
'Hello, love,' says the woman. 'Anything you want?'
'How much; for the night?'
'For you, love, a hundred.'
'Very well.' She turns and starts back towards her own street, her own house, so much safer there than out here. The woman follows noisily a yard or two behind, seeming to understand. She does not let the woman catch up until she is at the front door and the key, is in the lock. The gallery beckons. Only it doesn't look like' a gallery any more.
It looks like a butcher's block.
'Nice place you've got, love.'
She puts a finger to her lips. 'No talking.' The woman begins to look suspicious, looks as though she's thinking twice about being here. So she goes to her and grabs at a breast, planting a clumsy, smeared kiss across puffy lips. The prostitute looks startled for a second, then manages a rehearsed smile.
'Well, you're certainly not a gentleman,' she says.
She nods, pleased' with this remark. The front door is locked now. And she goes to the door of the gallery, slips the key in, unlocks it.
'In here, love?' The woman is removing her coat as she walks across the threshold. The coat is down past her shoulders by the time she sees the room itself. But by then, of course, it's too late, far too late.
She moves in on her, like a trained worker on a production line. Hand over the mouth, good pressure on the knife and a quick backward arc before the thrust. She has often wondered if they see the knife, or are their eyes closed in terror by then? She imagines them with eyes bulging open, focussing on the knife as, point directed towards them, it swings back and then flies forward towards their face. She can find out, can't she? All she needs is a strategically placed wall-mirror. Must remember that for next time.
Gurgle, gurgle. The gallery is such a marvellous setting, poised between Apollo and Dionysus. The body slips to the floor. Time for the real work now. Her brain is humming — mummydaddymummydaddy mummydaddymummydaddy — as she crouches to her task.
'It's only a game,' she whispers, her voice a mere tremble at — the back of her throat. 'Only a game.' She hears the woman's words again: certainly not a gentleman. No, certainly not. Her laughter is harsh and abrupt. Suddenly, she feels it again. No! Not already! Next time. The knife twitches. She hasn't even finished with this one. She can't possibly do another tonight! It would be madness. Sheer madness. But the craving is there, an absolute and unappeasable hunger. This time with a mirror. She covers her eyes with a bloodstained, hand.
'Stop!' she cries. 'Stop it, daddy! — Mummy! Make it stop! Please, make it stop!'
But that's the problem, as, she knows only too well. Nobody can make it stop, nobody will make it stop. On it must go, night after night now. Night after night. No letting up, no pausing for breath.
Night after night after night.
Fibs
'You've got to be kidding!'
Rebus was too tired to be truly angry, but there was enough exasperation in his voice to worry the caller on the other end of the telephone, delegated to order Rebus to Glasgow.
'That case isn't supposed to be heard until the week after next.)
'They moved it,' says the voice.
Rebus groaned. He lay back on his hotel bed with the receiver pressed to his ear and checked his watch. Eight thirty. He'd slept soundly last night, waking at seven, dressed quietly so as not to disturb Lisa and had left her a note before making his exit. His nose had led him to the hotel with only a couple of wrong turnings along the way and now he had walked into this telephone call.
'They brought it forward,' the voice is saying. 'It starts today. They need your testimony, Inspector.'
As if Rebus didn't know. He knows that all he has to do is go into the witness box and say he saw Morris Gerald Cafferty (known in the protection game as 'Big Ger') accept one hundred pounds from the landlord of the City Arms pub in Grangemouth. It's as easy as that, but he needs to be there to say it. The case against Cafferty, boss of a thuggish protection and gaming racket, is not airtight. In fact, it's got more punctures than a blind dressmaker's thumb.
He resigns himself to it. Must it be? Yes, it must be. But there was still the problem of logistics.
'It's all been taken care of,' says the voice. 'We did try phoning you last night, but you were never there. Catch the first available shuttle from Heathrow. We'll have a car meet you and bring you into Glasgow. The prosecution reckons he'll call you about half past three, so there's time enough. With any luck, you can be back in London by tonight.'
'Gee, thanks,' says Rebus, voice so thick with irony the words hardly escape into the air.
'You're welcome,' says the voice.
He found that the Piccadilly Line went to Heathrow, and Piccadilly Circus tube was right outside the hotel. So things started well enough, though the tube ride itself was slow and stifling. At Heathrow, he picked up his ticket and had just enough time for a dash into the Skyshop. He picked, up a Glasgow Herald, then saw the row of tabloids on another shelf: SECRET LIFE OF GAY WOLFMAN; SICK KILLER 'NEEDS HELP' SAY POLICE; CATCH THIS MADMAN
Cath Farraday had done well. He bought a copy of all three papers as well as the Herald and made for the Departure Lounge. Now that his mind was working, he saw all around him people reading the same headlines and the stories below them. But would the Wolfman see the stories? And if so, would he or she make some kind of move? Hell, the whole thing might be about to crack open, and here he was heading four hundred miles north. Damn the judicial system, the judges and advocates and solicitors and all. The Cafferty case had probably been brought forward so that it would not interfere with a golf game or a school sports day. Some spoilt child's involvement with an egg-and-spoon race might be behind this whole breathless journey. Rebus tried to calm down, sucking in gulps of air and releasing them slowly. He didn't like flying as it was. Never since his days in the SAS, when they had dropped him from a helicopter. Jesus! That was no way to calm yourself.
'Will passengers for British Airways Super Shuttle flight
The voice was cool and precise, triggering a mass movement. People rose to their feet, checked their baggage and made for the gate just mentioned. Which gate? He'd missed the announcement. Was it his flight?' Maybe he should phone ahead so they would have the car waiting. He hated flying. That was why he had come down by train on Sunday. Sunday? And today was Wednesday. It felt like over. a week had passed. In fact, he'd been in London only two full days.
Boarding. Oh, Christ. Where was his ticket? He'd no luggage, nothing to worry about there. The newspapers wriggled beneath his arm, — trying to break free and fall in a mess on the floor. He pushed them back together again, squeezing them tightly with his elbow. He had to calm down, had, to think about. Cafferty, had to get everything straight in his mind, so that the defence could find no chink in his story. Keep to the facts, forget about the Wolfman, forget about Lisa, Rhona, Sammy, Kenny, Tommy Watkiss, George Flight … Flight! He hadn't notified Flight. They would wonder where he was. He'd have to phone when he landed. He should phone now, but then he might miss the shuttle. Forget it. Concentrate on Cafferty. They would have his notes ready for him: when he arrived, so he could go through them before he entered the witness box. There were only the two witnesses, weren't there? The frightened publican, whom they had more or less coerced into giving evidence and Rebus himself. He had to be strong, confident and believable. He caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror as he made for the Departure Gate. He looked like he'd spent a night on the tiles. The memory of the night made him smile. Everything would be all right.